


Curiosity and Its Consequences

by aceofhearts88



Series: Howling at the Stars [18]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, I mean, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Snakes, a little bit at least, good outcome, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 00:15:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12971508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/pseuds/aceofhearts88
Summary: Torrhen Sand liked animals, of all sorts, but they were only real if you can touch them. That that way of thinking is not always the smartest decision is a lesson learned quite painfully for this wild boy.akaTorrhen and the Desert Snake





	Curiosity and Its Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of some Oneshots I will post before this series commences in its plot and rides North for Winterfell.

Later her son will not bear anything more than a small scar on his left wrist and the knowledge that you cannot pet everything. And that one might think before jumping into danger.

She will bear for the rest of her life how it felt to sit at the bedside of her baby boy, unable to do anything else but pray that the Stranger will not take another person from her heart.

\--

It happened like so many things would happen in the life of Torrhen Sand, quick, unexpected and due to too much bloody curiosity and a complete lack of a healthy fear of the unknown.

They had been outside the city to pay a visit to a Volantene merchant and his wife whom Ashara had befriended, the children had come along. Torrhen had been only too excited to play in the grand garden, exploring the new surroundings with curious eyes, keeping in eyesight, while they took tea with their host and talked. 

Jon, being a few weeks short of his first nameday, had not yet been able to walk and was content to crawl around their feet, giggling wildly whenever someone snatched him up to coo at him or tickle tiny feet.

“He is such a sweetheart.” Zyva cooed in soft Valyrian, holding Jon's hands tight and letting him bounce on her lap, the little guy was laughing, showing all six of his little teeth. “Look at these sweet curls, and those beautiful eyes. You're gonna be a beauty, aren't you? But when I look at your father, I should not be surprised, now should I?”

Ashara smirked into her tea cup, not having to glance over to Arthur to know that her brother was blushing again. Jon could not understand the words of course but the attention was welcome and he giggled, smiling brightly and blowing a clumsy raspberry into the air. Zyva laughed and set him down onto the ground again where Jon was off on quick limbs, babbling to himself.

Seeing him shoot off when Zyva's husband Maero made a playful grab for him, it made her wonder if one would ever question why her brother called him his little wolf. The kid was almost as quick as any pup she had ever seen, only the growling didn't work, all you would ever get from little Jon was a giggle.

Her own wolf could growl quite well already, preferred to train it mostly on the two maids who were tasked to fetch him for baths, the dreaded baths Torrhen hated so much because it meant holding still.

Said wild wolf was inspecting a green bush as she caught sight of him in the back corner of the garden, leaning down to look here and there, and she smiled over his curiosity.  
“Tell me, Ashara, you must have seen those dresses from Lys down in the harbor.” Zyva took her attention again and Ashara was only too happy to join in.

She didn't see anymore how her son suddenly jumped back from the bush and clutched one hand with the other.

\--

Ashara didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until she put Torrhen to bed that evening, her son already drowsy from a whole day full of activities, energy burned out. Her brother was standing over the crib, smiling down at a sleeping Jon while she put away Torrhen's clothes and then moved to tug him in.

Torrhen wasn't complaining a bit and she wondered a little over it, he usually put up a fuss over having to sleep even when he was dead tired, but maybe he really had run himself out of energy for good today. 

She smiled as she sank down onto one knee to kiss her little wild wolf goodnight but then quickly froze as she saw dazed violet eyes weakly looking at her and her son's face glistening with sweat. A hand quickly got snapped up to touch her baby's forehead and she gasped when her fingers touched burning skin.

“Arthur!”

\--

They quickly called for a healer to come up to the house and then placed Jon's crib into Arthur's room to make sure whatever sickness had come wouldn't touch the younger boy.

And then, while waiting for the healer to come, undressing her boy to bring the fever down with we rags, Ashara found the bite on a small wrist. The two tiny wounds that told only one story.

Snake.

She had screamed and Arthur had come running back into the room, tried to soothe, tried to calm her down but Ashara had been too afraid.

Hours seemed to pass then with them waiting outside the boys' nursery while the healer tended to Torrhen, Arthur holding her when he wasn't going to help the maids calm down Jon. The little guy was confused and frightened, wailing loudly for his Papa and not calming even then really for the first time ever.

Everyone was afraid.

When the door opened and the healer stepped out, Ashara was already through all prayers to the Seven she knew and she was tempted to reach out to the old gods as well, even when they were so very far away from any godswood.

Arthur pulled her against his side with a gentle harm when the healer made to speak, he was smiling, Ashara took that as a careful good sign.

“From what you described me, my Lady, it seems most likely to me to have been a desert snake. They are very common around the places outside the city. They are poisonous but not lethal. Your boy is strong, if he can fight off the fever, he will make a good recovery. Come now, I will show you how we can help him.”

\--

 

In the third night after the snakebite, Torrhen's fever had started to go down, though slowly only, and it was still dangerously high, and Ashara was running out of strength to keep hoping. Praying didn't bring any soothing calm anymore, and she turned her back on the Seven in a crisis for the first time in her life.

Instead she turned to pray to the dead to do what gods were refusing to.

She prayed to Elia. She prayed to her parents. She prayed to Rhaegar and Lyanna. She prayed to Princess Loreza. She prayed to Queen Rhaella. 

And she prayed to Brandon.

'Don't take my son'

She thought back to the first time she had laid eyes on him, the Wild Wolf of the North, back at the tourney of Harrenhall when she had been walking the grounds with Oberyn upon the Starks' arrival among their bannermen. He had ridden at the front, tall and broad shoulders, dark hair kept back in a simple bun at the back of his head, sharp grey eyes that had looked around.

Dressed in dark greys and a furcoat, he had looked the very embodiment of a Northmen.

And that night at the first feast of many, he had asked her to dance and Ashara had said yes, even though it would have been proper to have her brother consulted first as the ruling head of her family, with her being an unpromised maiden (supposedly, Andric had liked to pretend ignorance), or even Prince Rhaegar as the husband of the woman she was serving to as a lady in waiting.

As it was, Andric had been across the hall with Oberyn. Arthur would have said no just out of principle. And Rhaegar had been too busy.

They had danced and talked and Ashara had found a shared soul, a wild heart beating in tandem with her own. And everything that had followed had never been a regret for her.

Until a letter had been lost or stolen, and the realm had fallen into war.

And Ashara Dayne had been cast back home to Starfall, shamed and supposedly dishonored.

“Is this the punishment of the gods?” She murmured quietly as she knelt at her son's bed, watching over his feverish shaking body, “Is this my punishment because I tried to kill him before he really was?” Again and again, moon tea had not worked, other remedies had not worked, the child in her womb had refused to die.

She had never hated him, had never wanted to be rid of him because she had been ashamed, quite on the contrary she had loved him, from the very first moment in the Red Keep when she realized that she had been with child, when Barristan and Elia had worked together to get her out of the capital, she had loved her little wolf child.

But she had been afraid.

Already afraid of what would happen.

And then Brandon had been killed.

Ashara had been terrified, terrified that someone would find out about just who the father of her child was and her little wonderful child could be used as a pawn in those sick terrible political games.

But her babe had refused to die, and then Eyrin had stopped her, Andric had stopped her from risking her life even more, both of them assuring her that they wouldn't let it happen, that she and the babe would be safe from harm.

So Torrhen had been born, after a shocking easy birth, barely a few hours long, screaming loud enough to let everyone in the castle now how strong he was going to be. Eyrin had placed him in Ashara's eyes and Torrhen had opened his eyes then, and she had been left staring down into her own eyes in the face of a boy who looked all Stark in everything else. A perfect mix of his parents.

He was her miracle, her hope, and she couldn't lose him.

Not until she was old and grey and had lived to see his dreams come true.

“I know you don't want to be with him yet, Brandon. We have to give him a life, a long life full of adventures, the one we couldn't have had. I want to see my son return to Westeros, I want him to see your North, stand in Winterfell. I want him to fight side by side with Jon, taking back the crown from the stags.” The tears fell harder than before then as Ashara lowered her head to press her face to her son's small hand.

“I want my baby to live.”

\--

At some point she must have fallen asleep, exhaustion claiming her last strength and Ashara only faintly remembered how Arthur had returned to drape a blanket over her before sitting down to take watch.

But it wasn't him who woke her up in the morning.

Feeling worse than with any hangover she had ever nursed, Ashara woke to the feeling of something wet being repeatedly lightly slapped against her head. She groaned and made to snarl at her brother to stop his stupid games, only to bolt upright in the next moment when her situation caught up with her tired mind again.

And the feeling of something knocking against her head turned into a sweaty little palm fumbling against her face.

“Mama, hungry.”

And then her brother was laughing from behind her and her little boy kept on demanding food and whined when she crushed him against her chest and cried into his hair.

“Mama, no.” Torrhen repeated and a little hand pushed against her breast stronger than Ashara would have expected him to be capable of, not after such a fever. “Mama, no hugs, Torre hungry.” And her wild wolf growled true to his blood and used both hands to push against her when she still wouldn't let go. “Uncle!” He demanded, must have caught sight of Arthur over her shoulder, “Tell Mama stop!”

“Ash, you're suffocating the boy.” Arthur told her and his hands came to pull her arms off of Torrhen, her little boy scowled as he sat up in bed, his hair a sweaty mess still but his eyes clear of any sign of fever.  
“I'm hungry.” He explained again, his tone promising that he would soon run out of that little amount of patience he carried with himself.

Oh, children and their recoveries.

Torrhen looked like nothing had ever happened, no flush left on his cheeks, his skin not paler than usual.

From a room further down the corridor Jon showed that he was awake and bored of the crib, wailing for his Papa and it succeeded in snapping Ashara out of her spell. She quickly wiped hands over her face and smiled for her son as her brother got up with a brief kiss into her hair.

“Come on, Torrhen, let's get you dressed.” She said to him and Torrhen heaved such a relieved breath that she had to tickle him for his dramatics, “And later, my sweet, we're gonna talk over why we will never touch a snake again.” In response, Torrhen raised his hand and looked at the little bandage around it, he even poked at it with a finger, wincing when it obviously hurt. “Aye, that hurts, hm?” Big round violet eyes turned to look at her again, sheepish little dimple smile curling up her son's lips.

“Hug?” He offered and Ashara laughed, sitting down on the bed and swinging him up into her arms, feeling like the sound of her boy snickering while he clumsily wrapped arms around her neck was the most beautiful sound in the whole world. 

\--

Twelve years down the road:

\--

“Jon?”

“Hm?”

“Don't move.”

Every child in Dorne knew what those words meant and that they weren't to be questioned at all but followed with utter and complete precision. 

True to the warning he had issued, Torrhen was glad to note that Jon remained indeed absolutely motionless where he had laid down in the sand in the break they took to let the horses rest for a moment. He was also relieved that the wolves had run off for the moment and were not likely to return anytime soon, the last he needed now was Ghost throwing himself between Jon and danger.

Or Shadow thinking that he needed to prove himself the better warrior.

Sliding the dagger from his hip, Torrhen made slow careful steps forward, mindful to not move too fast until he could truly strike for good.

“When I say 'now' you're gonna roll to your right as fast as you can.” He whispered and made another step towards his cousin, sending some prayers to the gods and clutching the dagger tight enough that the scar on his wrist stuck out against his tanned skin. “Now!”

Jon rolled to the side and Torrhen struck his dagger into the head of the black desert snake having crawled up to Jon's hip from within its hiding spot in a dried out bush. The snake laid dead immediately and Jon flopped onto his stomach, turning his face to the side so he could look at Torrhen who wiped a hand over his face.

“You okay?” He wanted to know and Jon blew out a breath into the sand before nodding, “Gods, I hate snakes.” Torrhen grouched and pulled his dagger out as Jon pushed himself to his feet as well again. Behind the watchtower, Ghost and Shadow appeared with quick steps, rushing over to them with tongues lolling out of their mouths, nosing at the dead desert snake.

Torrhen really hated snakes.


End file.
